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Artificial Retina Implants

Intelligent Medical Implants Reports Artificial Vision Breakthrough

IIP-Technologies GmbH, on behalf of its parent company Intelligent Medical Implants AG (IMI),  announced that a limited clinical study related to its ongoing Early Human Trial has demonstrated that IMI's patented, first-generation Learning Retinal Implant(TM) enabled patients to see light--as well as simple patterns--via a wireless transmission of data and energy. This is the first time in the history of the development of artificial vision that completely wireless transmission of data and energy into an implant in the eye of long-time blind persons has resulted in pattern recognition.

"Each of these blind persons had no visual perception at all, yet upon wireless stimulation of the retina via the Learning Retinal Implant, they were able to 'see' something," said Hans-Juergen Tiedtke, CEO of IIP-Technologies, a subsidiary of IMI. "One patient, for example, a 65-year-old female from Marienberg, Germany, has not had sight for more than a half century. From early childhood she has suffered from RP, meaning that she has not seen normally for more than 60 years. Nevertheless, in her first pattern recognition test, she described continuous objects such as a half circle. There is no doubt that this result is extremely positive, given that she has had no sight for almost her entire life, yet was still able to immediately receive a visual perception from electrical stimulation.

Carbon Nanotubes Can Send Electrical Signals to Neurons

University of Texas researchers have demonstrated that mats of single-walled carbon nanotubes can communicate electrical signals to neurons, suggesting that the tubes could be used as an electrical interface between neural prosthetics -- devices used to replace damaged or missing nerves -- and the body. This is good news for those hoping to use nanotubes to stimulate or replace nerve cells in the eye, brain, and spinal cord.

The Texas researchers grew rat neurons on thick mats of carbon nanotubes seeded on flexible plastic sheets. Instead of treating the mats like a foreign surface, neurons take well to the nanotubes, says Todd Pappas, director of sensory and molecular neuroengineering at the University of Texas Medical Branch, who led the research. The nanotubes absorb an important neural protein and form a roughly textured carpet on which nerves grow readily. When Pappas and colleagues at Rice University sent an electrical charge across the sheet, the neurons responded with an electrical signal of their own, called an action potential, indicating that they got the message.

If they're proved safe for use in the body, carbon nanotubes may have advantages over traditional electrodes. Long-term implants can cause inflammation and scarring, because the body treats them like foreign material. In addition to carbon nanotubes' advantages of strength, flexibility, and conductivity, their surfaces can be covered with molecules that look friendly to cells.

Pappas says researchers would like nanotubes to mimic the kind of support neighboring cells offer one another, although they are "not yet sure what cells want." Scientists might try attaching molecules that encourage growth and stability, for example. "Surface modifiers need to be chosen so that the cell considers the nanotubes part of its natural [environment]," says Nicholas Kotov, an associate professor of chemical engineering at the University of Michigan.

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